Chapter Text
“It is her birthright.”
There’s something sharp in Merrin’s voice and Cal tries to narrow in on it. Some days, it’s like he’s underwater.
“Cal.”
“I’m listening,” He says. It's a dark, hot night on Koboh. The bugs chirp around them on Pyloon’s rooftop garden. A month ago, Cal helped Greez build a pond. Now, the stars reflect off the water. He dips his fingertips in and begins to clean a rock from his pocket. He found it on the shores of Tanaloor. Now wet, it shines a soft lavender. “You’re talking about Bode’s lightsaber.” Or rather, Dagan’s. But that was another box he wasn’t ready to open.
“What do you think? Can it be repaired?” She asks.
He likes the way she pronounces her O’s. What doo yoo think. Her voice has this special kind of edge that cuts right through his weariness. “I don’t know much about healing kyber crystals and there’s no one left to ask.” He repockets the stone, “Not anymore.”
Merrin crosses her arms and the force prickles with displeasure. She’s losing patience with him.
He reaches to take her hand and she lets him. He says, “I’m just a little lost on where to head next. Let me think on it.”
The tattoos on her face do a little dance as she fights between glaring at him and relenting.
“Just a little time to come up with a game plan,” He squeezes her hand and smiles–aiming to look charming and settling for not-exhausted. Prepping a planet for children, it turns out, is a lot of work. Merrin’s look doesn’t soften, but she squeezes his hand back. Her palm is dry and warm.
She leads him down the stairs, two steps in front. Her perfume trails behind her and when they reach the bottom, she gives his right upper thigh a pinch.
The stutter in his chest screams at him to pull her into the kitchen, so he does.
They topple through the swinging doors, already a mess of lips and teeth. Her hands slide up into his hair.
She tugs and he kisses her deeper. But then he feels her hands drop down to grip his shoulders and she’s pulling back. Their mouths make a little “pop” as they separate. He blinks with the suddenness of it, lips puckered.
She gestures with her eyes to something behind him and, slowly, he peeks over his shoulder to follow her line of sight.
Kata is there, holding a sack of flour, beaming. BD-1 stands beside her with his metal head tilted in curiosity. The little droid beeps in a greeting.
“...Hi, BD,” Of course his voice cracks. He can feel his ears turning red, too. He clears his throat, “Kata, isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Greez is helping us!” Kata runs away with a bright laugh, trailing puffs of white behind her. BD trills and follows, his little feet skittering after her.
“Hey! That doesn’t explain anything! Why are you two baking so late? Hey!” He looks back at Merrin for help but she’s laughing, too, her dark lips upturned.
“Come, Jedi.” And then she’s leading him down the hallway and he’s following close behind.
—
That night, Merrin’s breathing evens out next to him while his legs spasm and his fingers twitch. Their earlier conversation slides from his brain, down his throat, and burns into his stomach. He tosses and turns, opens, and closes his eyes to watch the clock eat up hour after hour. The glaring numbers on his alarm clock turn into little red lightsabers.
He’s too hot and too cold. When he finally slips into a half-sleep, he sees another Merrin. This version of her is waving him over. She sits cross-legged on a pyre, flames licking at her calves.
He blinks awake and the real Merrin is there, turned away from him. Her skin stained pink with his red-tinged vision. He presses a knee to the back of her thigh. The warmth confirms, yes, she’s the real deal. Flesh and bone. She shifts and he uses the opportunity to slip out of bed.
He wastes time in the hallway, moving silently. He paces up and down, up and down, like a caged animal. He checks on Kata, circles the kitchen, checks on Merrin, Greeze, and Kata again.
His fingers dance close to his lightsaber, his blaster. His heart hammers in his chest. He’s afraid? No–he’s eager.
He wants it.
He wants someone to come knocking on the door of the Mantis. He wants an excuse to slice, to rip, and tear. He can imagine what it would feel like so clearly. He knows what it would smell like–burning. Like power. His hands begin shaking, and he feels his pacing become frantic.
He catches a glimpse of pink-tinged skin and freezes mid-step.
Merrin is leaning on the doorframe, eyes sad.
Cal feels his face heat up, caught. “Oh, hey.” He forces his breathing to slow, “Hey,” He says again, dumbly.
She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she walks over to the bar and grabs a deck of cards. She shuffles them in her hand as she walks over to one of the booths.
He feels his chest loosen and he digs around in his pocket until he finds it. He tosses the now-polished rock on the table and it lands with a clatter. He sits across from her.
She tosses a little book into the pile. It has an intricate design carved into the leather cover. He raises his eyebrows. She waited until a poker game to tell him about some Tanaloorian script? She answers his question by flipping through it, showing him pages and pages of unreadable water-damage-smeared text. He shrugs as she puts it back on the table.
They typically gamble with worthless things they’ve found on Tanaloor. One time, Cal anteupped a speckled shell he found on the beach, and just as he pushed it into the wager pile, a little crab popped out.
He’d handed it to Kata the next morning. They decided to put it in the tank at Pyloon’s. It had made a satisfying little “plop” as it landed in the water. Kata’s eyes followed it until its shell was safely nestled in the sand.
Cal raises to 60 and Merrin calls.
He wishes he could tell Cere she had nothing to worry about with Kata. He’s seen her be kind and brave. She’ll be a good Jedi, one that he can’t imagine slipping to the dark side. Him, on the other hand…
As if summoned from memory, Kata herself walks into the room. She steps carefully, her hands behind her back. Her night pants peek up above her ankles, and he mentally adds another pair to the supply list. Did kids usually grow so fast?
Merrin slides him a card and tells Kata, “You should be asleep.”
He flips it–an ace.
“The air in here feels like syrup,” Kata says.
It’s not humid out. She’s talking about him and his mood. Is he getting worse? How far is he allowing himself to slip? He tries to think light, non-viscous thoughts, rolling his shoulders and puffing air through his mouth,
Merrin gestures to him, “Don’t let him hear that unless you prefer gelatin.”
It’s so blunt, and so true, that he can’t help but bark out a laugh. Kata grins. Something untwists in the force.
“Can I play with you guys?” She peers over the table. Merrin is already dealing her a hand, and Cal moves over to give her room on his side of the booth.
“I think Merrin gave you, what…” He counts the cards, splaying them face-down on the table, “...ten? Let’s play Rummy, it works well with three people.”
Kata gathers the cards into a fan and holds them tightly. Merrin touches her finger to each of Kata’s cards and says, “When all the numbers are the same, then you have a set.”
They play a few practice runs until she gets the hang of it like the clones did with him in the mess hall. They always played at the end of the week, when the cooks served extra dessert.
He grits his teeth and mentally stomps on the memory. The recollection makes him antsy and he leans to the side to stretch out his neck.
Apparently, too close to Kata for her liking. “Hey, no cheating!” She says, and presses the cards to her chest.
He shoots her a conspiratorial grin and squints over her head as if focusing in on her cards.
He feels someone grab his wrist and before he can react, Merrin is tilting his cards towards Kata, who covers her face with her own fan of cards and squeals. “I am NOT a cheater!”
Merrin abandons her treason and he hides the cards back against the table. She practically glows at Kata with pride. “That is very noble.” The air gets a little clearer. The force exhales. “However, it does not mean I will show any mercy.” Merrin puts down her last card and declares, “Game Over.”
A shadow with four arms falls across the room, “Who’s idea was it to gamble without me?” Greeze walks into the room, yawning.
“Sorry to wake you,” Cal tosses his cards onto the discard pile, figuring now is as good a time as any, ”I guess we’re all here.”
Three sets of eyes land on him. “Have any of you been to Lothal?”
Greeze says, “Yeah,” At the same time Merrin says, “Yes.”
Cal forces a smile at Merrin. He can’t help it. The memory of her leaving still makes him flinch. “I guess I forgot, you went all over, huh?” He was so angry at the time. He swallows and makes his voice deep and nonchalant, “What…kind of things did you get up to over there?”
Merrin smiles, sly, “Things?”
“Stop flirting and tell me why we’re going to Lothal,” Greeze interrupts, one of his braids is half-undone and frizzy. He mutters, “Don’t think I didn’t hear about the kitchen thing.” Cal remembers that Greez gets kind of cranky when he’s tired.
Merrin flicks one of Greez’s ears, “He’s getting to it.”
Cal clears his throat before continuing, “I trained at a hidden temple there, once. Might be something to check out. There’s a place to make a supply run, too.”
Greeze nods thoughtfully while Cal speaks. At the mention of the supply run, he perks up and tugs at the cuff of Kata’s pants. “Good call. I was just thinking, we need to get this one some new clothes, huh? Shooting up like a weed.”
Kata pulls her leg up to her seat and peers at the thin strip of skin between her pants and her sock.
“It probably won’t be as nice as the clothes you’re used to,” Cal says, apologetic.
Kata looks down at her nightshirt, “That’s okay. The base only let me wear this kind of stuff.” She stretches the top out in front of her, “I’m excited to try something new.” She rubs her eye with a fist.
Wordlessly, Merrin stands and holds out her arms. Kata leans into her touch as she’s scooped up, like it’s natural, like it’s always been like this. He imagines a world where no one was here before them. No Master Tapal. No Prauf. No Cere.
No Bode.
Just them, floating through endless space.